Where there was water, there were animals. My plan was to study them first. I’d wait to see what they ate, what they avoided, and possibly what ate them. It would be valuable information I might need later. Marines were all trained in survival skills, so if any of my squadmates were on the planet, my hope was we’d meet along the way.
I’d written some of the training manuals. The most important of which were directed to anyone who survived a crash landing on an alien planet. I’d spent three years of my career, months at a time, alone on foreign worlds. I practiced unarmed combat against everything I thought I could take, and even a few I wasn’t so sure about. I ate everything the locals consumed, discovering the hard way which ones would cause meteoric gastrointestinal distress, parasitic infections, constipation, or all the above. I also carried a field pack containing the most powerful medications modern science had created to cure such things. Being without such a medpack now gave me a reason for caution.
I also killed at least one of every dangerous beast on each planet. There were creatures who spit acid. Others who fed on acid. Still others who covered their egg sacs in acid, relying on the chemical to make the eggs weak enough for their young to escape.
Others spat the bones of their kills to slay their next meal. Some flew, while others were able to project sticky webs a hundred yards up to snare the fliers. One consumed solid stone, literally chewing rocks to gravel before swallowing.
I learned lessons from each of them and had the scars to prove it. The most important lesson I learned, though, was that ambush predators were the worst of all. They disguised themselves as something innocuous: a tree, a leaf, or even an entire hill. They lay in wait until some critter, such as a Marine, happened by… and they pounced. Their attacks were quick, ferocious, and if their prey wasn’t ready for it, they were as good as dead. It was that type of creature I was watching for now.
I stalked five steps forward, crouched, and listened. If I heard nothing different, I’d move another five steps, crouch, and repeat. As I traveled, the ambient noise of bird-like things fluttering through the trees steadily increased. They were camouflaged, but I did catch sight of one, and though it didn’t look much different than an Earth bird, the shape of their wings and feathers had a peculiar pattern. As such, I named them dusters, after that cute feathery-thing the holovids always had maids cleaning or tickling things with.
I concealed myself in a bush, listening to their high-pitched calls and scanning the edges of the stream, which had widened to almost two yards. In the water ahead of me was… something. An object that seemed out of place from those around it. It was a rock, and it glowed.
Glowing geography wasn’t normal where I came from. But this wasn’t Mars, and I wasn’t aware of what normal was here. I was, however, aware of what abnormal was. One glowing, yellow rock among hundreds of blood-red ones wasn’t normal. Also, I was curious. I wanted to go take a closer look, and that’s what I decided to do… after I found a couple more of them.
I didn’t have to look far. The stones nearby were big and a bit unwieldy but not too heavy. Once I’d pulled enough of the groundcover away, I tore them from the soft, red dirt easily enough. Three blood-red rocks. One glowing yellow rock. The equation looked like it might be a whole lot of fun if the local fauna—or flora—decided to attack.
I stood from my hiding place, one head-sized piece of primitive ammunition on my left shoulder, the smaller rock in my left hand, and another larger potential projectile cradled under my right arm, ready to throw. Nothing happened. I took a step toward the glowing rock and scanned the nearby ground. Nothing happened. I took another half-step forward and saw it.
The creature’s excitement was palpable, obvious, and primal. To be honest, I was a little disappointed. On one planet, there were vicious creatures the Marines had nicknamed “vorpal bunnies.” They were active hunters, stalking around on their four, little feet, with light-absorbing armor plates covering their backs like armadillos. Even those were sneakier than the owner of the glowing ball.
I sighed. It wouldn’t be as fun as I’d hoped. The rock I was holding on my left shoulder was heavier than the one on my right, so I set all the rocks down, picked up the biggest stone, and lobbed it into the three-foot-deep stream where I’d seen the movement.
The water instantly boiled as a 10-foot-long, blood-red creature, flat as a brothel welcome mat and three times as long began to flail, attempting to free itself from the boulder. The thing wasn’t even strong enough to slip out from under my makeshift trap. The glowing end of a long, thin antennae, the one obviously meant to lure prey, thrashed in the air.
Then I got a surprise.
There was a noise from under the water, somewhere between a pop and a thud, and the creature’s upper half lunged at me. I rolled over my shoulder and out of the way in a brief flash of movement. The monster seemed unsure whether to strike again, and I was happy to take a few seconds to inspect my attacker.
Along both sides of its blood-red belly ran hundreds of red legs, each ending in a razor-sharp hook. The two largest legs were near its circular mouth, and they snapped together like pincers. The beast had four black dots at the front of its head, likely some kind of specialized eyes.
This creature had to be the closest thing to an apex predator for miles around.
It was time to introduce myself.
I reached down to grab another stone from the river, but
